Synonyms 23 



French, If baccifere (Du Hamel du Monceau), 

 pi. 19, p. 61. 



Italian, Taxo. 



Spanish, Texo, Iva. 



Portuguese, Iva. 



Irish, Whar} 



Dutch, Jeue7i, Jetiejiboom. 



Welsh, Yivezi, Yreu-yw. 



Gaelic, An-t-iuchar. 



M. Lat, Ivus, Iva or Ina, 'a name which 

 Dr. Price says was an abbreviation of 

 Ajiiga, a corruption of Abiga, a plant 

 which Pliny considered to be the same as 

 cha^ncBpitys (^aixanrLTv?), but which was also 

 applied to several plants, and is of uncertain 

 derivation.' 



In Notes and Queries, 1887,^ T. C, asks \{ yezvs 

 were ever called vieiv trees, and quotes several 

 instances he has met with. Looking at the ety- 

 mology of the term, it seems impossible that it can 

 ever have been a customary spelling ; it can only 

 have resulted from y being mistaken for v, and 

 from the odd changes in the value of v and w, such 

 as may still be found in Norfolk, where it is not 



^ 'The name of the tree in Celtic \^ jiibai-, pronounced yewar, i.e. "the 

 evergreen head." The town of Newry in Ireland took its name from two yew- 

 trees which St. Patrick planted (!): A-Niiibaride, pronounced A-Newejy, 

 i.e. the yew-trees which stood in Cromwell's time, when some soldiers 

 ruthlessly cut them down.' — Fras. Crossley, Notes and Queries, ist Ser. 

 viii. 4481. 



- 1887, vol. iv. p. 532. 



